


Down the Rabbit Hole

by coatlicue



Category: Glee, Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Drug Use, F/F, Pining, Quinn is friends with the Rosewood clan, Unrequited Love, quinntana
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 20:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11215629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coatlicue/pseuds/coatlicue
Summary: "Quinn was ready to take anything she could get, even if she knew already that Santana belonged to someone else. The name written on Santana Lopez’s heart was always ‘Brittany Pierce,’ but the name tattooed on Quinn Fabray’s skin was ‘Santana Lopez.’ There was no laser big enough to erase it, no pill strong enough to fully take away the pain."Or, Santana and Quinn are pining for each other and Quinn has a pill problem to deal with.





	1. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, I'm just importing my old works so they're all in one place.

**_Down the Rabbit Hole_ **

_“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”_  
_-_

_Deep in my soul I’ve been so lonely_  
_All of my hopes are fading away_  
_I’ve longed for love like everyone else does_  
_I know I’ll keep searching after today_

_-_  
**QUINN**

Porcelain skin danced against caramel, the moonlight streaming in through the window. Quinn’s hands traced patterns on tan skin, making silent maps of _“Please don’t go”_ and “I love you” that only she could see. She had never felt more exposed, more vulnerable than she did in that moment. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around Santana’s torso, begging her to stay, begging her not to go this time. Their nights of fever never carried out into the morning, as much as Quinn wanted them to. She was a stranger to herself when she was in tangled in the sheets with the brunette.

What had she gotten herself into? There was supposed to be no strings attached, no feelings, which was what they had agreed to when they had started this. No feelings meant no complications and that was what they had wanted. That was what Santana had wanted, and that was what Quinn thought that she had wanted. And yet, all of the touches from Santana’s nimble and graceful fingers seemed to be carved into her skin as they trailed up her back, raising shudders and goose bumps as only someone you love can.

Quinn needed her, even if the only way she could have Santana was in the physical. Quinn needed her velvet voice to interrupt the excruciating loneliness and ache that she felt when she was alone. Santana’s lips and touches were everywhere, bending her at her own will, with a control that almost scared Quinn. Santana’s fingers danced on the slightly rougher skin of Quinn’s scars, tracing them with her rough fingernails and worshipping them as they glowed in the moonlight.

Quinn’s body was riddled with scars, there was the stretch marks and the ghosts of the deep gashes from her car accident. There was the scar on her shoulder from when she fell off the pyramid and there was the small scar behind her ear from a childhood accident. She was normally so ashamed of them, but with Santana, she felt different. Safe. There was something beautiful in the way that she let Santana leave a small light on as their bodies danced with one another, shuddering in the moonlight.

Santana was raking her fingernails down Quinn’s back as she came, moaning softly into Quinn’s ear. Quinn felt her chest tighten when she looked at the beauty in front of her, her skin completely bare as she came undone. It hit her as she looked at her how much she actually wanted her, all of her, not just nights of passion that never carried out into the morning. She wanted everything, she wanted the late nights cuddling, she wanted the pet names, she wanted the dates and the flowers, but most of all, she wanted Santana to fill in the loneliness.

She wanted Santana to help her warm up during long cold nights in her Yale dorm, she wanted Santana to help take away the ache that seemed to live in her chest, tugging at it during lonely nights. Because Yale was cold, and Yale was lonely, but Santana was not. The nights that she spent tangled in Santana’s arms were where she felt most at home. She had never really felt at home in her body, it had always seemed like it belonged to someone else, like she was borrowing the beautiful body in which she resided and that it would soon be taken away. She had never really felt like she belonged anywhere, especially back in high school, but in Santana’s arms she almost felt whole.

She doesn’t know why she chose Santana, of all the people that she could have fallen for, why did it have to be her? Why do people always love people who will never love them back? All Quinn wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to be loved by her. Is it human nature to fall in love with the wrong people? With people that we know we cannot have? Why did she keep going with these long nights, even if after every single one of them the hole in her heart grew?

She didn’t know, but all she knew was that for a few precious moments, she felt the hole in her heart be filled. She would keep giving Santana what she wanted as long as Santana wanted it, because Quinn loved her more than she should have and even if Santana didn’t know it, Quinn had already given herself to Santana wholeheartedly. Somewhere in between the long sleepless nights of moaning and the never ending days of staring at her phone just waiting for Santana to text, Quinn Fabray had fallen in love with Santana Lopez.

God, she wished her mom could have heard that so she could see her face. Because Quinn Fabray was not supposed to fall in love with Santana Lopez, but then again, Quinn Fabray was not supposed to have gotten pregnant at sixteen either. Because all her life, Quinn Fabray had been told that she had to be perfect, even if it wasn’t in so many words. It had always been _‘Quinnie, listen to your father,’_ or, _‘Quinnie, one day you’ll marry a nice Christian boy like your sister is.'_  She was always to become a lawyer, or an accountant, or a politician. She was to do something that would uphold the Fabray’s high status and glorify their name. She was to marry a nice white Christian boy from a good family and have little blonde babies with him.

It had always been that way for Quinn. She had never had any other options, she was given the instructions and she had no other choice but to follow them. Quinn Fabray was not supposed to fall in love with a girl, and a Latina at that. Quinn never meant to go against the system of rules that was placed before her the moment she was old enough to understand it, but she didn’t have a choice this time. She was addicted to the taste of Santana’s lips against hers, she was addicted to the feel of Santana’s hands dancing on her skin. She was addicted to Santana and she could not let go of her, Santana coursed through her veins at every moment and Quinn loved the feel of it.

She loved the high that she got from simply being around Santana, the waves of euphoria that coursed through her body every time the two would tangle in the sheets. She could not let go of the feeling of pure and utter ecstasy that pumped through her veins at the thought of Santana. There was nothing she could do, it was like she was completely and utterly addicted to Santana, and as much as she told herself that she could take another hit, she knew that she would only end up wrecked on the other side. Because there was only so much heartache that she could take before she would snap. There was only so much longing that she could live through before it became too much. Quinn Fabray had nights with Santana, plenty of them, but she knew with all her heart that she needed the mornings too.

She had realized this the first morning after they had slept together, after Mr. Schue’s wedding reception. She had woken up alone, the bed cold beside her. She didn’t know back then, that it would hurt this much. She thought it was an experiment, a one-time thing, something that could be forgotten with time. But then one night turned into two, which turned into four and then into ten, and soon enough it was every weekend. She had many nights with Santana Lopez, but she needed the mornings before she would shatter.

Her heart had been completely exposed, and it was only a matter of time before the cuts on it began to bleed. It was only a matter of time before she would completely unravel with the need for Santana to love her. Every time Quinn woke up alone, another cut was made on her heart. Every time that Quinn cried over the fact that Santana didn’t love her, more cuts opened. Quinn had given her heart and soul to Santana, and Santana had unknowingly taken it in the night like a cloaked bandit.

Quinn was willing to give herself to Santana with everything that she had, while Santana only wanted the nights. Santana wanted “fuck-buddies,” she wanted no strings attached and no feelings besides the platonic ones, but Quinn had already fallen in way too deep for her own liking. Quinn was ready to take anything she could get, even if she knew already that Santana belonged to someone else. The name written on Santana Lopez’s heart was always ‘Brittany Pierce,’ but the name tattooed on Quinn Fabray’s skin was ‘Santana Lopez.’ There was no laser big enough to erase it, no pill strong enough to fully take away the pain.

Quinn could only repress her feelings, keep them hidden in the darkness of midnight touches and desperate kisses. She could keep them hidden, she could pretend. If there was something that Quinn Fabray could do, it was pretend. She couldn’t make the longing for Santana Lopez stop, and she couldn’t keep it from hurting every time she saw Santana staring longingly at pictures of Brittany from when they were happy together. She didn’t know how to make the pain stop, but she knew how to pretend to ignore it and hope that it would dull.

It wasn’t supposed to have happened this way, Quinn Fabray had picked a hole in the sky and it was only a matter of time before the universe was bound to fall through.

 


	2. The Pool of Tears

_**The Pool of Tears** _

_“The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.”_  
_-_  
_Do you believe you’re missing out?_  
_That everything good is happening somewhere else?_  
_But with nobody in your bed_  
_The night’s hard to get through._  
**-**  
**SANTANA**

Santana swung her bare feet over the edge of the bed, hissing softly as they touched the coolness of the hardwood floor. She quickly gathered her clothes, putting them quickly on herself before looking back at the quiet girl who was murmuring in her sleep. The moonlight caught on the contours of her face, highlighting its features and making it seem even more beautiful. Santana’s eyes fell on the rise and fall of Quinn’s chest and the bareness of her body that peeked from underneath the covers. She wanted nothing more than to climb back underneath the covers and tangle her limbs with Quinn’s, but instead she walked back and sat in the chair in the corner of the room and stared outside the window.

The sky was dark, the stars flickering above the buildings. She had not meant to catch feelings for Quinn Fabray, in fact, it was the last thing she had envisioned when she began the little experiment. Quinn was meant to be a placeholder, someone to fill the hole in her heart where she was sure only Brittany would fit. Someone to help her get though the cold lonely nights when she was in desperate need of companionship. Instead she found herself tending to another hole in her heart, this one shaped like Quinn Fabray.

When she first realized her feelings for Quinn Fabray, she wanted nothing more than to run, she had walked out of Quinn’s dorm that night with the intentions of never coming back, only to find it impossible to stay away. She had no intentions of stopping. Quinn was already an addiction, Santana craved her every day despite how volatile and unreasonable their relationship might have been. All the desire that had been circulating inside of Santana’s veins was bubbling to the surface as something more than a simple attraction.

Her skin tingled where Quinn’s hands had been, she could feel the ghosts of the pads of Quinn’s fingers stinging her skin, the feeling bringing a deep ache with it. She could feel the ghost of her breath on her collarbone, steady and repetitive. Santana rubbed her hands against each other until they burned, still listening to Quinn’s shallow and even breathing from below the covers.

Santana did not know when she fell for Quinn Fabray. She was in love with Brittany all throughout high school, but the feelings for Quinn Fabray remained, calmer and buried like a teardrop during a rainstorm. Maybe when Quinn got into her accident and Santana was sure that if Quinn didn’t wake up she would die, that should have given her a clue, but the rainstorm for Brittany was still booming and she failed to notice the movement of the seas. The thought of Quinn’s broken body in those few months made Santana’s chest ache, and she looked back at the strong woman that Quinn had become as she hid beneath the covers, moaning softly in her sleep. Maybe when Mr. Schue told them that they were going to sing “Take My Breath Away” and her breathing quickened, that should have told her something, but she was too focused on the booming of Brittany’s thunder to notice the soft whistling of Quinn’s waves.

Sometime during the span of their “experiment” Santana had grown to need Quinn, she found herself addicted to Quinn’s touch, to the color of her eyes, to the softness of her words. She had grown to love the feel of her skin pressed against Quinn’s, and it scared her to think about falling for another blonde because unlike Brittany, Quinn was so real, so human, she could hurt her at any moment and Santana would not be able to stop her.

Santana wished she was able to let Quinn go, but the love that she felt for Quinn was stronger than Santana herself. She wanted Quinn, she wanted Quinn and all her wonders, but she felt like she was the desert, and Quinn was the water that Santana begged for even a little bit of. She knew she couldn’t have Quinn, not in the way that she wanted to have her, but she would take what she could get.

It wasn’t healthy, Santana knew that. She was taking too much of things that she didn’t understand, she was falling too deep in something so treacherous without knowing what would be there when she got to the bottom. There was a very real chance that she would come out destroyed on the other end, but she was addicted. She had signed up for somebody to take away the excruciating pain of the nights that she spent alone, and she found herself feeling the burns of Quinn Fabray’s soft and unsure fingers on her skin. There was no other option but to comply and give in to the touches of her own fingers on Quinn’s skin, no matter what the personal cost.

Santana was rotting. Every time she went back to New York alone, and every time Quinn went back to New Haven without saying goodbye, Santana would rot a little more underneath. She had always been careful about keeping her feelings locked inside, keeping them to herself, but she found herself so often fighting a war with herself and feeling like she was on the losing end. It was like she was in junior year again, it was like she had never flown out of her chrysalises after the end of metamorphosis, and she was still writhing in her skin, still wrapped up in the feelings that she had for her best friend.

She didn’t feel comfortable with herself anymore, but the thought of leaving Quinn and never coming back felt like a knife against her neck. She couldn’t let go of Quinn, but she knew she was holding on too tight to whatever they had, she tried to pretend that the relationship wasn’t draining her of her energy, that it wasn’t sucking her life out of its color, because she loved Quinn too much. She couldn’t let go of Quinn, so she pretended that whatever they had wasn’t broken and she made no attempt to fix it. It was going to break both of them if she didn’t take a step back and breathe, and she knew it. She knew that every time she went back to New York alone she was making another scar on her heart and matching ones on Quinn’s heart.

But New York was lonely. And New York was cold, and at night Quinn was warm and soft beside her. Santana did not have any more fight in her. She was tired and achy and exhausted, she was too tired to keep fighting in a battle with herself when she had already lost the war, because whatever she was doing with Quinn was both too much to take and too hard to let go of. She gathered her things and quickly slipped out of the room, sending one last look at the sleeping beauty before closing the door behind her.

She walked out into the cool night air of New Haven, wishing that Quinn was next to her keeping her warm. The night was both quiet and noisy, and Santana did not know how that could be. The ride back to New York was tiring and her brain seemed to shut down for most of it, she was cold and she was lonely and with nobody by her side the night felt like it would be hard to get through.

The loft was deadly silent when she walked in, Berry and Lady Hummel long asleep. The apartment was cold. And it was lonely. And she missed Quinn even though she had just left New Haven. It was like Quinn was so near yet so far, another thing that Santana did not understand. She could lie next to Quinn every night as their bodies shuddered with pleasure, but she could never have Quinn the way that she wanted to have her. She could run her fingers against the puckered skin of Quinn’s back every night and still the Quinn shaped hole in her heart would not be filled.

But at least through the nights with Quinn she could pretend. She could pretend to have her, she could pretend that her skin didn’t burn where Quinn’s fingertips had grazed it, she could pretend that the image of Quinn writhing beneath her was not etched into her mind. Because during the nights she could feel the pain dull, even a little bit. It did not go away. It never truly went away, it was always there, a dull rhythmic thud at the back of her head, taunting her.

The tick-tock of Kurt’s clock played over in her head as it rang through the loft, it seemed to taunt her, and it reminded her that her time with Quinn was running out. It made her feel like she was losing her mind, like it was only a matter of time before she went completely insane. Or maybe she already was insane, maybe she was insane for falling for the one girl that she knew she could never have, the one girl who she was not supposed to feel anything for except desire and friendship. She was not supposed to have fallen head over heels for Quinn Fabray. Did that make her crazy? Was she crazy for choosing to love the people who could never love her back?

It hurt an awful lot, to have the dull thud in her head turn into a splintering ache in her chest as the clock continued to mock her. She fought at the urge to throw one of her shoes at the stupid thing and instead walked towards her spot on the couch and pulled her knees onto her chest. She could feel the urge to cry build within her like pressure in a volcano and she fought against her tears as she tried to control herself. Why did she have to fall for Quinn? Of all the people that he could have fallen for, why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be Quinn Fabray and her beautiful hazel eyes? Why did she have to fall for her best friend again?

It was cruel, for love to have put her in that situation. It could have been anyone else, but for some reason her heart was set on her. She couldn’t blame it, not really. She was beautiful, quite possibly the most beautiful girl she had ever met, and it hurt Santana to know that she could never have her. Perhaps it had been her own fault, as she had made it very clear in the beginning of their relationship that it was no strings attached, best friends with benefits kind of deal. That was what she wanted then, just someone to help keep Brittany’s seat warm. But Brittany’s seat became Quinn’s seat as she fell for the girl who she shared endless nights with.

Sometime during the nights with Quinn she had noticed the ocean as it came rushing over her in cool waves, and she knew that she had jumped in feet first into it, only to discover that she did not know how to swim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song at the beginning is "Jesus Christ" by Brand New


	3. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

_**A Caucus-race and a Long Tale**_  
-

_“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”_

_“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat._

_“I don't care much where—” said Alice._

_“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” said the Cat.”_   
_-_

_All we know is touch and go_

_We are alone with our changing minds_

_We fall in love 'till it hurts or bleeds_

_Or fades in time_  
-

**QUINN**

Quinn hated the mornings. When the sun would rise and the quiet stillness washed over New Haven, the world was finally calm. But Quinn hated the mornings. She hated the quiet and the chill, she hated waking up every morning expecting different results than she had gotten the week before. She hated reaching on instinct to her right side and feeling nothing but cold sheets beneath the pads of her fingers.

There were first shapes and light twisting and shifting beneath her closed eyelids, and next her eyes fluttered open, quickly closing again as the stream of sunlight from the open window assaulted them. A cool breeze blew in through the open window, and on instinct Quinn reached over to her right, and her heart plummeted to the epicenter of the world when she was met with cold sheets once again.

In theory, this fact should not surprise her, of course. It should not make her chest tighten with ache and her heart fall a million miles downward. Santana had never stayed before, she had never let their nights of fever carry out into the morning, and yet—and yet, Quinn continued to hope. Her heart ached with loneliness, with tiredness, with the true Fabray notion of needing to be needed.

Because Quinn wanted—needed Santana to need her. She needed her face to pop up on her phone, she needed Santana's face to cover her wallpaper, to cover everything that hurt. Yale was still lonely. Quinn had fantasized about college life since she found out what it meant (running away from everything in true Quinn Fabray fashion.) She was unpleasantly surprised when she actually arrived at Yale, because with the flight to New Haven came the realization that things didn't work the way that they did in high school.

People didn't part like the red sea when she walked down the hallways, most of the time they didn't even look at her twice. She was no longer the head cheerleader, she had a couple friends, sure. They were people she hung out with every once in a while, people who acknowledged her and knew her name, but her heart ached too much for her old friends to make new ones.

Quinn didn't even know what she wanted, now that there was supposed to be no pressure. Judy wasn't drinking and Russell wasn't yelling and there shouldn't have been a weight on her shoulders to be the perfect daughter. And yet, when Quinn awoke, the first thing on her mind—after Santana—was that she needed to be perfect. Of course, in theory, she knew that perfection was a mirage, unreachable and impossible. But she reached for it anyway. That was what she had been taught to strive for, and old habits are hard to shake.

Quinn's dorm room was cold, and she had no idea where her roommate had gone, although she guessed that Spencer ran off to Hanna's after seeing the ribbon tied around the doorknob. It had kind of become a common occurrence, and although Quinn knew that Spencer was probably very opinionated on her and Santana's “friends with benefits” relationship, she didn't say anything and Quinn didn't ask her to. Instead, Spencer watched her with sad eyes and tucked her in if she had forgotten to after crying herself to sleep. Quinn couldn't have asked for a better roommate.

After all, silence is golden.

Even then, Yale was still lonely. The morning was evident and the air smelt of it, of New Haven moss and old books. Quinn's side of the dorm was messy in a manner that could only be described as artistic, in a way that was much like her, messy in the details but fine on the outside. Dog-eared books were below the bed, collecting dust, waiting, like friends, with open arms for Quinn to pick them up again. Her desk was clean, but messy, her laptop sat on it and papers with research for an English paper that was due three weeks from now.

Her closet had clothes strewn carelessly inside it, and books stocked high behind them. Her dorm room didn't have a bookcase. She gathered her robe and headed sleepily to the showers, where she stood below the spout of the water and let it wash over her, the water was cold—probably too cold, but Quinn couldn't bring herself to care. Because Yale was also cold.

Sometimes Quinn wished that she could step into the shower and the water would wash away all of her shit, you know? Sometimes she daydreamed about what she would do differently, if she got the chance to. She never got a complete answer. For some reason all her daydreams went utterly wrong, there was never a happy ending, there was a million different crossroads and yet they all led to the same destination.

As Quinn shivered under the water, she tried not to think about anything. It was too much to think about, and whenever the thoughts would free themselves from their locked cages and into the forefront of her brain, the room would start spinning by the sheer force of the thought's weight on the universe. It was almost as if the universe spun faster on it's axis if she let herself think. So, she didn't think. It was easier that way, cleaner.

Of course, every waking moment of Quinn's day somehow revolved around the brunette. That was inevitable. The ache never really went away. But if Quinn did things, if she kept herself busy, if she reached into the locked box at the back of her closet, the thoughts could be pushed to the back of her mind until they attacked her once more at night. The room never spun faster when she was floating, her bones never hurt and the ache in her chest would dull to a low and soft throb.

The throbbing moments were Quinn's favorites, when she couldn't keep up with everything that was happening around her, when the only thing she saw were flashes of color and moments from the corner of her eye. When there was nothing to follow, and the ache in her chest was now only the slowed beat of her heartbeat against her chest.

She didn't think as she stalked back to her empty dorm room, and she stared into her messy closet blankly. There were rows upon rows of colorful sundresses and scarves, and as she stared into it she could not for the life of her figure out how to keep moving. She reached above her clothes and to the rack at the top of her closet, she was weak and she was dizzy, but soon her fingers felt rough wood beneath them.

She picked up the locked box and quickly opened it with the small key that hung safely around her neck. She felt a strange euphoric rush as she grabbed the first container and it rattled as she stepped back onto her bed, defeated. Oxycontin, the bottle read in the same small blocky letters that she had come to know. She dumped two into the palm of her hand and inhaled deeply and sharply once, twice, three times before she put them in her mouth. They were rough and they stung her throat, but the floating feeling she was used to came soon enough.

She walked calmly over to her closet and picked out a dark grey dress that hung loosely around her body and dropped to two inches above her knees. Then she put on a dark orange coat that reminded her of fall, of autumn's warmth and the quiet breeze that blew in New Haven. Nothing bothered her as she got ready, she hummed a slow song under her breath and quickly got her stuff together as she headed to the only class she had that day.

The Yale campus was beautiful, the light shone on it in a way that made her smile. She caught sight of a cute couple sitting on one of the large greenish benches, they hooked onto each other and smiled into each others eyes, and for once the stabbing feeling in Quinn's gut did not come. She was jealous, sure, but the ache in her chest was only a dull thud because the floating feeling was still there.

Quinn walked slowly into her Psychology class, she took a seat at the back and quickly took out her laptop to take notes. Her professor was droning on about something or other, and although one side of Quinn was listening, taking notes and answering questions, another side of her was simply floating, she was moving between dimensions, she was tasting the universe, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. Of course, a part of her knew that it wouldn't last, that once the floating feeling faded the cold would seep back in and the ache would be worse than before.

When the class was dismissed she quickly gathered her books and her laptop, the floating feeling was fading and she was tired, she just wanted to get back to the dorm and sink into bed, but as she began to walk out she heard a voice call after her.

“Lucy!” A low and raspy male voice yelled, “Lucy Fabray?”

Quinn quickly turned around, she was scared for a moment. Hearing the name Lucy brought back memories that Quinn would rather forget. Things that she would rather leave behind. As she walked towards the source of the noise, her thirty-six year old professor, she caught her reflection in a large ornate mirror that hung on the wall. She could have sworn that instead of blonde hair and a thin frame, she saw a chubby girl, reddish brown hair and braces, but when she turned towards it again, all she saw was the epitome of perfection that had lived in the mirror since freshman year of high school.

“Hello, Lucy. I just wanted to talk to you on that paper you turned in last week about the perceptions of the universe.” Professor Carson said confidently, almost arrogantly as he leaned on the wall in a forced nonchalant way.

“It's Quinn, actually.” She said, irritated and tired. She just wanted to be back in her bed, because her chest was starting to ache and the floating feeling was fading.

“Yes, Quinn,” Professor Carson tried the name out on his tongue, it almost sounded poisonous, forced, and it made Quinn's skin crawl with discomfort. “Your conspiracy on humans being the equivalent to a computer virus was... interesting, to say the least. Can I ask how you came up with that?”

“I was thinking about DNA and computer codes. You asked us to come up with a conspiracy on how humanity came to be, and I though about—um, anomalies in the universe.” Quinn lied and smiled, silently thanking the Oxycontin for helping her keep her cool. Of course she wasn't going to tell Carson the truth—she was as high as a kite when she wrote that paper, and the universe seemed to fit in the back pocket of the world at the time. She had two more equally bizarre papers sitting idly in her computer, waiting to be turned in for some other equally irrelevant assignment.

“Well,” Professor Carson confidently said, “I'd love to, eh, discuss your theory sometime. Over a cup of coffee in my office, maybe?” He extended his right hand, which was holding a small scrap of paper with a number on it.

Quinn wasn't stupid, nor was she oblivious as to what his professor was doing. She grabbed the piece of paper and threw it in her bag in such a way that should have shown him that she would never use it, but he just stood in front of her and smirked at her in a way that said 'I know something about you that you don't.' It made Quinn want to hit him in the face, the thought that he had been analyzing her without her permission, the thought that he knew something about her that he wasn't supposed to.

She quickly nodded to him and walked out, the hallways were filled with students, the pattering of footsteps echoed in Quinn's ears as she made her way back to her dorm room. The darkness was seeping in again, the sunset over New Haven was tinted with gray, in a silent way that got under her skin and crawled inside it. Her breath came out in slow puffs to the even slower beat of her heart against her chest.

It was scary for her—that this was her life now. She knew what she was doing was bad, but it was also necessary. She was not naive, but she needed something to keep her from the cold of the world. Little blue pills worked as good as anything. She unlocked the door to her dorm room, fully expecting it to be empty, but instead her roommate sat cross-legged on her bed with a laptop on her lap.

She nodded hello to Spencer, who was skyping one of her friends, and opened her laptop to start on her psych assignment. “Tell me about your biggest fear. (Minimum 300 words, maximum 600 words. Times font pt. 12)” The prompt was fairly simple, but for some reason the thought of answering it made Quinn's heart race. How was she supposed to describe her biggest fear to someone else when she couldn't explain it to herself?

The fear of being incapable of being loved. The fear of loving. The fear of staying the same. The fear of change. The fear of aching. The fear of becoming exactly like her mother. The fear of losing control. The fear of the unknown. How was she supposed to explain any of that?

She opened a new document on her laptop and stared at the blank space before her. Her fingers tickled the keys but nothing came out, nothing of sense, and she became frustrated with herself. She needed to be perfect. She needed to finish this paper, but the ache in her chest was once again present and her heart was beating fast again and the room was too hot, the world was too hot, the world was too big, too loud, too cruel. There was nothing about this paper that should have brought a reaction like this out of her, but she was on the verge of panicking and she didn't know how to stop it. She closed her eyes tightly shut and tried to focus on her breathing instead of the way that the room was spinning.

“You okay?” She heard Spencer ask, and she tried to nod her head, but her heart was beating too fast and the room was suffocating her. She felt like crying but she had no idea why, she didn't understand why she was being driven into such a panicked state by something as simple as a question about a biggest fear.

“The bag, Spence.” She faintly heard a voice on the laptop say, and before she could form a rational thought, Spencer was kneeling in front of her and she was breathing into a brown paper bag. Her heartbeat was gradually slowing and her breaths were once again decelerating to an acceptable rate. She pulled away from the bag and murmured a soft “thank you” to Spencer as she caught her breath.

“You okay?” Spencer asked again, and Quinn managed to nod.

“Yeah, I—I'm okay. I don't...” Quinn took a deep breath and shook her head, “I don't know what that was.”

“Don't worry about it, it's just a panic attack. I used to get them all the time back in Rosewood when things got hard.” Aria interjected from the laptop, Quinn looked briefly at the screen and saw the girl give her a timid smile, before looking away. Panic attack? Quinn had never gotten those before—and in all honesty, the hoped she never would again. It was like being trapped, which was awful enough, but also like knowing that you shouldn't be—which was the unnecessary rust on the edge of the blade.

“Must be pretty stressed to be getting panic attacks, though. What happened?” Spencer asked, looking at her with a concerned look that made Quinn want to burst into tears. The thought that someone could show concern for someone they didn't even care about was foreign to her. Quinn had never been kind, and in high school she had been too hung up with herself to acknowledge the fact that others could be kind.

Quinn stayed quiet. She did not know what had happened. It was just a stupid question for an equally stupid essay. To anyone else, the question should have been direct and incredibly easy to answer, but the fears of the unknown had crept into the forefront of Quinn's brain and they were causing mayhem through her thoughts. The room was still too small and too hot, everything felt as if it were going to attack her, as if the whole world was out to destroy her.

“Is it Santana?” Spencer asked tentatively, like she was dipping her toe in the water to see if Quinn would explode or not. Quinn stayed quiet. Yes—Quinn supposed, it could be Santana. Quinn knew she was falling apart at the seams, on the verge of self destruction, and Santana was a part of that. But the thought of admitting that Santana was anything less than perfect made her skin crawl.

A few moments of awkward silence passed, none of the three girls said a word. There was a sudden chill in the room and Spencer shivered slightly, pulling against the sleeve of her sweater.

“Well...okay. You're stressing yourself out though, just relax. The girls and I are going out tonight, you should come.” Spencer's voice was soft, quiet, and had a small tremble that Quinn almost never heard. More than that, it was kind. Spencer was showing concern in a way that Quinn didn't often hear, even from her friends back home. Quinn didn't want to go, especially with the chill outside and the ache in her heart, but she felt like she owed them something. She was tired of not being able to forget about Santana. She was tired of the Latina occupying her every thought, taking ownership of every scar and every beating moment.

She needed to forget, she needed to laugh with a couple of girls—even if she knew she'd be out of place. They'd all known each other forever, but Quinn needed someone. She was lonely, cracked, aching, hurting and cold. Because all Yale had been was cold. All Yale had been was lonely, and Santana still hadn't called.

“Okay,” Quinn smiled—a real smile, for the first time in a long time, and Spencer smiled back honestly.

A few hours later, Quinn was staring at the girl that resided in the mirror. The girl was smiling serenely and beautifully, even though there was an ache in Quinn's chest that made her want to scream. Quinn's little black dress flowed gracefully to a few inches above her knees, and the back of her black heels were scratching into her ankle. She thought about washing off the makeup and going to bed, because she suddenly felt like crying—although she had no idea why. Instead, she grabbed her clutch and her phone and headed out behind Spencer's tall figure. Perfect.

They met the girls outside some sketchy club outside New Haven, even from the parking lot it smelled of weed and sweat—everything Quinn Fabray hated. The bouncer waved them in without another look, and they sat down in one of the booths behind a couple who was close to bumping uglies in the middle of a club.

Quinn felt out of place, it was obvious to her that they were a family, just by the way that they talked and joked and touched each other without fear. It reminded her of glee club—of the friends (more like family) that she had not called once since she moved to New Haven. She felt guilty (she didn't know why) and her stomach was twisting in all the wrong places. She restrained from reaching into her purse for the little pills that she knew resided in it.

“So, Lucy, where are you from?” Emily said, and it brought an unnecessary ache into her heart. She looked so much like Santana that it hurt to even look at her, and Quinn tried not to look, but this time her head turned quickly to Emily in a panic.

“What did you just call me?” She said quickly, and her voice sounded a lot more panicked than it should have. She knew the girls noticed by the confused look on Emily's face, the slightly frightened look on Spencer's face and the other girls' stares.

“Lucy?” Emily asked again.

“She—um, she goes by Quinn, actually.” Spencer interjected, and Quinn sent her a silent thank you. Quinn didn't want to explain the entire Lucy thing to another person. She had already told Spencer about it once, and the thought of having more people know about her Lucy days sent a dart of pain into her chest. She had a reputation to uphold, she needed to be perfect.

“Oh, sorry. I just—I have psychology with you, with Professor Carson. He called you Lucy, so I—” Emily looked so guilty that it made Quinn feel bad for snapping at her. She held so much resemblance to Santana—both in looks and the blonde's hand she was holding under the table—that Quinn fell in love with her a little bit.

“No, it's totally okay. I just—um, that name...it holds things I'd rather not remember. I'm actually from Ohio.” Quinn made a desperate attempt to change the subject, and luckily for her they took it. She knew that they wanted to ask questions, but instead they started a conversation about which state was the prissiest, Pennsylvania or Ohio.

Yale was getting warmer, but Quinn still felt cold. The club was chilling down and Quinn's bones were aching. The girls kept asking her to dance, and she kept trying to deny it nicely, but they were asking questions. She was tired, and she crept away to the bathroom at a devastatingly slow pace to try and dull the ache in her hips and legs.

When she got inside she dropped onto the toilet and breathed heavily against her hand. Her legs felt like they were both numb and on fire at the same time. She leaned her head against the side of the stall and tried to breathe. Luckily, the bathroom was empty. She tried not to cry, but the pain in her legs was completely unbearable. She reached a shaking hand into her bag and pulled out a small yellow pill and swallowed it quickly. Her throat ached from the lack of moisture, but it was a particularly strong dose and she waited for it to kick in.

It was taking too long, and her muscles were weak, her bones were aching and her stomach was doing flips. She faintly heard the door open, but her breathing continued to be painful and slow. It hurt to have her lungs fill with air and her head was throbbing. Everything hurt, and she barely registered the soft knock on the door before there was someone kicking open the flimsy stall door and kneeling before her.

Spencer's tall figure was blurry before her eyes, a barely recognizable shape that was twisting and shifting. Quinn tried to focus on her breathing, and it took a few minutes, but her breathing regulated itself after a while and the focus of Spencer's face was no longer hazy.

“Are you alright? Do you need me to call someone?” Spencer asked, and Quinn simply shook her head. The little pill was finally beginning to kick in, and the pain in her lower back and legs had dulled to a low and softer throb.

“No...I'm okay.” Quinn said, but her voice was quivery and she was breathing heavily. Her legs were weak, but at least they were no longer burning. She didn't think she could get up from the toilet stall, and it scared her that she had somehow become dependent on the little pills that were stashed at the back of her closet.

“Are you sure? You look like you're gonna hurl.” Spencer was trying to send Quinn a reassuring smile, but there was a panicked look in her eyes that made Quinn panic too. She knew there was no chance that she would throw anything up—she hadn't eaten anything in a while, but she was afraid of other things. Of losing her composure, of people finding out who she really was, of everything changing and shifting and twisting into darker things.

“I'm okay. I'll-I'll be out in a sec.” She said, but her words came out a pained whisper.

“Do you need help getting up?” Spencer asked, although it was more of a 'I'm going to help you up now' than an actual question. Quinn wanted to tell her to leave, that she didn't need any help, because a true Fabray never needs anything, but instead she grabbed Spencer's arm and pulled herself up on it. Her legs felt like jelly but they were still strong enough for her to hold herself up, and after a while the shaking of her knees stopped completely. Her legs were achy but no longer hurting, and the floating feeling was back again.

“I'm okay now, Spencer.” Quinn said as she unhooked herself from Spencer's hold. Spencer told the girls that it was late and that they were going home, even though in reality it was only ten-thirty, but they didn't object when they saw Quinn's red rimmed eyes and weakened muscles. It was so sweet of them that it made Quinn want to sob.

The ache in her legs was rare now, but it got bad on cold nights, especially if she was using her hips for a lot of movement. It was awful, especially the first few months after recovery, that she would feel every little movement in her hips like it was a knife slinging through her legs. Dancing, bicycling, even sex—they all caused her back and legs to burn. It was better now, especially when she was floating.

When Quinn and Spencer got back to their dorm and Quinn immediately went to bed. She was too exhausted to be embarrassed about what had just happened, too tired to think and too lonely to care. The night draped over the room in dark hues, and even though Quinn could hear quiet breathing from the bed next to hers, she still felt utterly and completely alone. She felt like she was alone in a battle she was bound to lose. She tried to let herself go and she let sleep invade her body, but even as her eyelids drooped and her breathing evened out, the ache in her chest was still there.

The next day, Quinn was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her laptop balancing on her knees. She was bullshitting her way through an essay for English—talking about her dreams for the world as if they didn't revolve around a brunette. Spencer was bobbing her head to a Taylor Swift song and humming along. Quinn's phone made a soft 'beep' noise from where it rested on her desk and she quickly unlocked it when she saw that it was a message from Santana.

San: Hey Q, you busy this weekend?

Quinn resisted the urge to scoff. Santana knew she wasn't busy, they knew each other's schedules perfectly, and yet they both continued to pretend that this wasn't something that had been going on for months. Quinn wished that she was strong enough to tell her to fuck off, Quinn wished that Santana couldn't bend her to her only wish and that she was strong enough to put her foot down. But she wasn't, and that was the problem.

'No.' She texted back quickly, before the logical side of her brain could catch up to her. It only took a couple seconds for Santana to text back, a quick message to let Quinn know that she was coming over that night and that it would be best if she got Spencer out of the room before she got there.

There was a sudden chill in the room, and Quinn resisted the urge to laugh. It was both ironic and fitting. Because even through everything, Yale was still cold.

Hours later, there was a red ribbon tied around the doorknob and moonlight spilling in through the   
window. Quinn's pale skin was moving against caramel skin as she shivered under the chill of the room. Quinn's back ached, but there was more pleasure than pain as Santana's head was between her legs. Quinn came almost silently, there was only the slightest change in her breathing as she poured herself over Santana, letting go of all reason and all of her senses as they danced.

She knew that when the morning came Santana's side of the bed would be empty, but that didn't dull the ache that came when she woke to find a simple IOU scrawled on the back of a receipt instead of a mop of brown hair on her pillow. She was tired, and she was achy, but all that went away when she reached into the back of her closet and unlocked the wooden box that resided in it.

When she took it, she knew she had taken too many.

She couldn't bring herself to care.

Because Yale was still cold.

Yale was still lonely.

And when the sun rose over the edge of the New Haven horizon, Santana's side of the bed was still empty.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Spencer and co.: As many of you know, the names are from Pretty Little Liars. It won't be a crossover, so you don't have to watch PLL to read, I just didn't want to make up OC's because I'm lazy, so I'm borrowing the characters. I won't bring in any -A things (unless you want me to, of course!)
> 
> DISCLAIMERS: Song used at the beginning is “State of Grace” by Taylor Swift. This quote and all quotes are from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I also do not own Aria, Emily, Spencer, Hanna, Alison or anyone from PLL.


	4. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

**_The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill_ **

_-_

_"Down, down, down. Would this fall ever come to an end?_

_'I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?"'_

_-_

_All those demons are closing in_

_And I don't want you to burn_

_Nevermind what I said before_

_I don't want any less anymore_

-

**SANTANA**

Santana hated leaving. She hated when the light began to stream in through the window and the smell of morning would come, because it meant that she'd have to get up and go back home on the 6:15 AM subway ride back to New York. There was always a quiet stillness over Yale as she walked off the campus, the sidewalks bare and the air chilly, but inside Santana, there was a hurricane.

She tried her hardest to focus on things other than the hazel eyes that followed her around wherever she went. Instead, she focused on the noise of the subway, on the single flower that rose out of a crack in the sidewalk, even on the noise of her own steady heartbeat against her chest. She didn't want to think about Quinn, because then she'd have to think about what it meant. About what Quinn meant to her now that her heart throbbed when she was around Quinn.

The sound of the subway was overcome by a quiet sob, and Santana almost brought her hand up to her mouth to silence it, but soon realized that it wasn't coming from her. There was a girl who was sobbing into her yellow cardigan, loud ugly sobs that shook her shoulders and echoed off the walls of the subway.

Santana almost couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight, and it was distracting enough that she didn't think of Quinn for the entire subway ride. Instead, she found herself thinking about the girl and the loud cries that fell freely from her half-open mouth. She found herself wondering who broke her heart, was it by accident? Cheating? Distance? Did she break her own heart after long nights at the office, like Santana's mother? Or did she break it after having the midnight shift at the ER, like her father?

She never got an answer, because after an hour or two of vacant stares and pounding feet, she was at her stop. The sun was out, peeking barely over the egde of the skyscrapers that lined the streets, and the sidewalks of New York were alive with busy people rushing to work. Santana walked quickly home, ignoring the cold, judging stares from middle aged mothers and the awkward looks from the lobby manager in her apartment building.

Her walk of shame was short-lived, and she quickly walked into the loft, threw her bag on the couch and cursed the universe because Rachel and Kurt were actually awake—and apparently didn't have class today. She was going to get so much shit. She took of her coat and shoes and tried to make an escape into the bathroom, but in a sudden second Rachel was in front of her. Rachel was standing almost comically with a baking mit-covered hand on her hip. Her other hand was holding a ladle, and she was pointing it dramatically at Santana's chest.

Santana sighed and tried to step around Rachel, but Rachel put an arm around her waist and pulled her back.

"Oh, c'mon Rachel. I really need to pee." Santana said, which wasn't a complete lie.

"No, you don't."

"Berry, I just took a two-hour ride back here in the early morning. Trust me, I need to pee." Rachel looked suspiciously at her and then quickly moved away and theatrically grabbed her shoulder. She really needed to cool it on the dramatics.

"Fine. But you're not getting out of this. Go take a shower. When you come back the soup will be ready and we are all going to have a little chat."

Santana quickly walked away from Rachel, eager to get away from her questions. She was already dreading the conversation that she knew would come. Kurt and Rachel had a very strong opinion on her 'friends-with-benefits' relationship with Quinn, and they had voiced it plenty of times, but at the end of the day they always backed off. She had a strange feeling that that wasn't going to happen this time.

A few minutes later, she was in the shower. There was a hot stream of water on her back, soothing her, and she was finally calm. With the calmness of her thoughts came the inevitable image of hazel eyes behind her closed lids. She tried to push the image away, but it was there, it was persistent, and it was etching its way into her heart and into the forefront of her brain.

She wanted Quinn. That was obvious to her, but Quinn was straight. Even if she wasn't (which was actually beginning to seem quite probable, given the circumstances), what did that mean for them? It was complicated, and Santana didn't do complicated. That was mostly the reason that she loved Brittany. Brittany was simple. Santana had fully expected to go back to Brittany when everything calmed down, but she didn't count on falling in love with Quinn.

Quinn was nothing like Brittany. Quinn was confusing, infuriating, complicated, and almost always made Santana want to jump off a bridge with bricks tied to her ankles. But Quinn was also lonely, and beautiful, and sad, and almost always made Santana want to hold her until she wouldn't hurt anymore. It was...well, it was complicated. And Santana Lopez didn't do complicated (or so she thought.)

Santana tried to take the longest that she could in the shower, and after, even longer putting on her clothes. The thought of having a conversation with Kurt and Rachel about Quinn made her head spin. They would want her to explain things to them, things that even she couldn't explain to herself. She could only run for so long, because soon enough she was sitting on the couch with Kurt and Rachel's eyes trained on her.

They were holding coffee cups in their hands as Santana awkwardly looked at the bowl of soup in her lap. It had grown cold from the amount of time that she had spent trying to avoid this conversation.

"Now, I know you know what we want to talk to you about." Rachel said in such a manner that it made Santana hang her head in shame. A part of her wanted to slap them both across the face so hard that they would forget why they wanted to have this conversation in the first place, but a much bigger part of her was just too tired to fight it.

"Santana, we're worried about you." Kurt said, and Santana continued to stare at her the bowl of soup in her lap, stirring it softly with her spoon. It seemed almost surreal, that Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry were sitting across from her right now, staring at her with concerned eyes and sympathetic smiles. She didn't know how to respond to Kurt's comment, so instead she stared at her bowl and touched it lightly with the tip of her pinky. It was cold.

"We need to talk about what's going on with Quinn. We've noticed you going to New Haven more. At first I thought Quinn was a placeholder... mostly because you've always been so in love with Brittany, but now I'm not so sure. Do you like Quinn? As in, more than sexually?" Rachel rambled, and Santana's heart sped up.

How was she supposed to answer that? Yes, she liked Quinn. Loved, possibly. But what did that mean? Did she want a relationship? Of course she did, but was she ready for a relationship? Everything was so confusing, including the tingling on her lips that lasted far longer than it should have. She wasn't completely over Brittany, and she didn't think it would be fair to Quinn to make a promise that in the end, she couldn't promise to keep. That was assuming that Quinn wanted to have a relationship with Santana, which was doubtful in itself.

She realized that Rachel was still looking at her, an expectant look on her face.

"I- um- I—" Santana stuttered and Rachel simply looked at her with the little crease between her eyebrows that she got when she was trying to get a point across.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Rachel said and looked at her with the pitying eyes that she had been trying to run away from this entire time. Santana dug one of her nails into her palm, trying in vain to focus on something that wasn't Quinn. Quinn was always there, the waves of her ocean violently moving in the back of her mind. Her chest was aching with the desire to have Quinn's warmth on her skin.

It was Kurt who spoke next, "Santana, if you have feelings for Quinn, you can't keep on doing this. Whatever this... friends with benefits relationship is, it's going to destroy you. Pretending in a friends with benefits relationship destroyed you once. I mean, you tried that already, with Brittany."

Kurt looked almost guilty after he said it. It had become an unspoken agrreement to avoid the topic of Brittany in the loft. It was difficult, even then, to hear Brittany’s name said so casually. 'Brittany.' Even after so long, Santana's chest would ache at the sound of it, at how every syllable would roll so perfectly after the other. At one point, Santana was sure she could say it over and over and over again without growing tired of it.

Santana knew Kurt was right. But Santana was a pretender. All her life, she had been pretending. A walking facade. She was great at pretending, and not so much at dealing with the reality of things. Dealing with the reality of things was what got her into this mess in the first place. She didn't know how to deal with herself, with the uncharted feelings that she had for Quinn, without ripping herself apart.

"I—I don't know... what to do." Santana said, as she mindlessly played with her hands. She picked at the skin around her fingernails. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kurt and Rachel share a look. They had been talking about this.

"You need to talk to Quinn. Maybe she likes you back, maybe she doesn't, but this is hurting both of you. You can't keep doing this, Santana." Kurt was right, she knew that, but the thought of not having Quinn in any way was worse. Santana didn't know how to live without Quinn's waves rushing over her every weekend.

Santana bit the inside of her cheek and tried to focus on that instead of the hazel eyes that haunted her every thought.

"You're banned from the apartment," was the next thing that Santana heard.

"What?" Santana exclaimed.

"What Rachel means, is that we think you should go back to New Haven, and speak to Quinn." Kurt said, his eyebrows comically raised as he attempted to chastise Rachel for being so blunt.

"So you're banning me from the apartment?"

"Yes." Rachel said, her arms folded over her chest.

"What Rachel means—" Kurt started, but was quickly cut off by Rachel.

"No, Rachel means what Rachel means." A moment of silence passed between them, and it was Kurt who spoke next.

"Get out, Santana." Kurt grabbed Santana's hand and dragged her away from the couch.

"I can't believe you're doing this." Santana yelled, as Kurt grabbed her coat from the rack and pulled it over her shoulders. He handed her her bag.

"Just go." He said as he opened the door, and Santana stepped out.

The air outside was chilly, and it blew against her damp hair in quick waves. She clutched her coat close to her chest and began walking.

People passed by her like they were in a rush to get somewhere, but she walked slowly past them. She didn't want to get to New Haven. Going to New Haven would open a can of worms that had been tightly closed for as long as she could remember. But she didn't have a choice now, did she? So, she walked slowly past unfamiliar faces and blank stares. She held herself together long enough to reach the bus station.

She sat for an hour, struggling to keep her mind blank. Thoughts were her worst enemy right now, at least, that's what she told herself. When the bus arrived, her doubts came rushing into the forefront of her brain. What if Quinn told her she didn't want her? Worse, what if she did? What was she thinking, coming here?

She had to do this.

That's what she told herself to get up from the cold bench on which she was sitting. New York was cold, but Quinn wasn't, and that was the most important thing.

Her thoughts continued to assault her during the bus ride, and half of her was going crazy, while the other half pretended that everything was alright. She rested her head on the window and stared at the landscapes before her, taking memory of every building, every face, every broken heart and every whole one. When she saw the familiar buildings of Yale, her heart began to pound in her chest.

Soon she was walking on the familiar pavements, past busy students and loving couples on iron benches. She saw the Quinn's building and her heart sped up, she rubbed her palms against each other violently and tried to find a geeky-looking kid to bring her in. She saw someone hunched over alone, a PS3 in his hand. Perfect.

She tapped him on the shoulder and held back a laugh at the startled look on his face.

"Hi, cutie." She said, and held back a laugh at the wide-eyed look on his face. "I need to ask you a favor."

"Ye-yeah?" He stumbled over his words, seemingly unable to form a coherent thought. This was turning out to be way too easy.

"I need you to bring me in with you as a visitor, can you do that? You see, I'm here to surprise my best friend, and I- well, I don't want to ruin the surprise by asking her to bring me in." She leaned forward slightly.

"Uh- yeah, sure. I'll—let's go." He led her into the building and registered her as a visitor. She waved him goodbye as she walked slowly into the elevator. She was here. She was in New Haven. And she was going to do this. Those were some scary thoughts to her, and it was strange to think that in a few minutes, she was going to destroy what had taken months to build. She was going to lay herself bare, which was the most frightening thought of all.

She had spent so long perfecting this relationship, shaping it so it worked, and even though it destroyed her, it worked. It wouldn't work after this. Feelings mess good things up. But good things also mess feelings up. There is no winning in this situation, but Santana was here, and Santana was going to do this. She could. She said these things to herself over and over again as she was reminded of the feel of Quinn's waves on her skin.

When her knuckle was knocking on wood, her heart felt as if it was going to burst straight out of her chest. She fought the urge to cry, to scream, to dig her nails into her skin as she stood in front of the door, waiting for an answer. The door opened, and Quinn's hazel eyes stared back at her. Quinn looked startled, but the thing that scared Santana more than that was that when Quinn saw her, a hurt look had crossed her face.

"I thought you left." Quinn said, although it was more of a question than a statement. Santana shrugged and stared at her shoes.

"I did. But I came back."

"How did you get in? I didn't even let you up." Quinn's voice was uncharacteristically soft, a rough whisper that Santana was not used to. She had heard this soft, reverent voice before, in New York during junior year, after Beth was born, even when glee club ended, but it had never been directed at her. It was Quinn's sad voice, the voice that she got when she was trying not to cry. It was the voice she got when she was panicked, when she was trying to hide something, or when her emotions were bubbling to the surface in hard and rough waves.

"A student brought me in as his visitor. It really wasn't that hard, Quinn." Santana had been in this same hallway many times before, but this time, something was different. There was tension in the air that hadn't been there before, and she hadn't even said anything yet. Or was it just her imagination? Was she over thinking things? Maybe she was, because lately, that seemed to be her problem. She would sit in bed mulling over everything that happened until it had turned into a jumbled mess of words and pictures and nnumbers that she couldn't understand.

"It's not... I didn't come here to sleep with you." Santana was mentally facepalming. 'I didn't come here to sleep with you?' Who says that?

"Oh. Uhm... I—you can come on in, then. I was just... working on an essay for class." Santana found it kind of funny, that they saw each other so much, and yet they were so awkward around each other when the blinds were open. They were best friends, right? This should be normal.

"Oh, okay. I can wait, if it's important."

"No, it's fine. I'd much rather hang out with my best friend than write an essay on some warriors who made a huge-ass empire in China, anyway." Quinn glanced nervously around the empty dorm room, as if searching for something, and then opened the door wider to let Santana in. Quinn seemed shaky, nervous, and slightly irritated. Santana sat down on the bed, and there was a moment of awkward silence before Quinn spoke up,

"I'm going to go to the bathroom. It's just down the hall if you need me." Quinn's hand was shaking visibly, and she was fiddling violently with her fingers.

Santana nodded, and Quinn stepped out into the hall, leaving Santana alone with her thoughts. How was she going to do this? She didn't come here with a plan. The only thing she knew was that what she was about to do was going to ruin everything. And god, if she had to go one more moment staring at Quinn's skin without being able to touch it, she would probably explode. Was she really going to do this? It would be so easy to revert back to old habits, to pull at Quinn's hair and touch her skin in the places she had so many times before.

But Santana didn't want that anymore. She didn't want the short exotic visits with Quinn that ended when the sun rose over the horizon. It was destroying her, drowning her, and she was desperately gasping for air, for stillness, for a time when the winds inside her would finally be calm.

Santana took in Quinn's dorm room—she had never really seen it during the light of day before. She ran her fingers over the busted edges of books that lied around the room in neat little stacks, and looked at the pictures she had hanging over her bed, including the ones of herself with her arms over Quinn and Brittany's shoulders. She picked up a picture from the nightstand beside Quinn's bed and smiled softly at it. Quinn's eyes were sad—they often were, but her smile was brighter than Santana had seen it be in a long time.

Quinn was taking a while, and Santana's palms were getting sweatier by the second, and she tried to figure out her feelings, but they were all mixed up in her head and she couldn't sort out the stanzas of her thoughts. It hit her that even when Quinn did come back, Santana would have no idea what to say. She would stand in front of Quinn and stare into her hazel eyes, and before she knew it she would be lost in them again.

She couldn't have that happen.

So instead, she grabbed a piece of paper from Quinn's notebook with the intent to sort out her feelings. She tried to find a pen, but there wasn't one in sight, and when she opened the desk drawer she saw something much more dangerous than a gel pen. If there had been just one bottle, Santana wouldn't have thought twice about it. But there was more than one. There were bigger pills, smaller pills, different brands, some bottles that had the name 'LUCY FABRAY' printed on them, and others that had foreign names on them. They were in an unlocked wooden box, as if they had been thrown there in a careless attempt to hide them quickly.

Looking back, Santana should have known. Quinn had been acting strange ever since her accident, but Santana had been too focused on Brittany, on Lousville, on glee, on everything else but their friendship to see it.

Now, though... now it seemed glaringly obvious. It was staring Santana in the face, in her pupils, in the way she breathed, in the way her hands shook, in the way she smiled and in the beat of her heart. It was written all over her, her entire body was screaming that something was wrong. A part of Santana wanted to entertain the idea that Quinn wasn't abusing them, and she really needed them, but the signs were too obvious to ignore.

Quinn's name wasn't 'Brealen Farizan.' And as much as she wanted to believe that Quinn was using these painkillers the way that she was supposed to, Santana knew it wasn't the case. She wished it was. She really wished it was, because the reality of the situation was not something that Santana was equipped to handle, and no matter how much she wanted to, there was no way to pretend that she didn't know.

The door opened quickly as Santana read over the names on the pill bottles, and nearly burst out into tears at the intensity of some of the prescriptions. Quinn stood at the door, watching Santana intently, and when Santana brought her head up, she saw Quinn staring at her with fearful eyes. If she didn't know what to say before, she definitely didn't now.

It was fucked up, how the first thing that Santana noticed when Quinn got back was how much more relaxed she was than when she had left. When Quinn had walked back into the room, her hands were lying calmly by her sides, and her breathing was slow and irregular, coming out of her mouth in spaced out, shallow breaths.

"Shit, Quinn. What the fuck are these?" Santana asked, which, in retrospect, was a stupid question, considering she knew exactly what they were. They were twenty-six too many bottles of little colored pills, an endless supply of self-destruction.

"Oh." She said, her voice almost dying out.

"Yeah. Oh. What the fuck, Quinn? How many of these are you fucking taking?" Santana breathed havily through her nose as she tried to control herself, as she tried to regain the control that she had completely let go of.

"I—I don't want to talk about it." Quinn's chin quivered, and it reminded Santana of the way that Quinn cried—like a pretty girl, delicate and almost noiseless. Nothing like the way that Brittany cried, with loud heartwrenching sobs. They both tugged at Santana's heart all the same.

"Quinn." Santana began, her tone cold and demanding.

"Why do you even care?" Quinn asked accusingly. I care because I can't stand to watch you do this to yourself. I care because I can't bear the thought of losing you, and if you keep doing this, I surely will. I care because you're the only thing I have left and you deserve better than this. Of course, Santana didn't say any of that.

"Q, I—"

"No, Santana. Why do you even care? You didn't care before. You haven't cared for months, why start now?" I have cared. I've always cared, Quinn. Why can't you see that?

"Q, I didn't know." She didn't know, and that was the worst thing, Santana's worst crime. She should have known. The signs were all there, laid out for her to pick up on. Quinn's waves were banging against rocks, screaming for someone to notice them. And all Santana did was ignore them, until the twenty-seven little bottles were all laid out before her.

"Well pretend you still don't."

"I can't do that." Santana sighed. She wanted to, she really wanted to feel Quinn's skin on her own skin, but now all she could think of was Quinn's slow heartbeat. She couldn't stay in New Haven and pretend that nothing happened, she couldn't stay in New Haven and ignore that when her flushed chest pressed against Quinn's, her heartbeat would be slowed to the point that Santana would have to worry about it stopping.

"Why not? Why do you even care, Santana?"

"I care because I love you!"

Oh shit. That was it. She had said it, the dreaded three words. She had told Quinn 'I love you' before, sure, but this was different. In this case, it was achingly clear what these words meant. A crease formed between Quinn's eyebrows, and her eyes stared into Santana's as if asking for a way to respond.

"No. Santana, you came here to fuck me. We don't talk about things, and certiainly not about this. We have sex. That's all you've ever wanted from me, right? So if you can't do that, then get out." Quinn's tone was icy.

She rendered Santana speechless, and Santana cowardly put the bottle back down on her desk. It was a typical thing of Quinn to do. Lash out when she was scared, but hearing her say it when Santana was so ready to confess feelings that even she didn't have figured out yet, it was like being in junior year next to that metal locker all over again.

Santana didn't want to make all the same mistakes, but she did.

In fact, she did the worst thing possible, she grabbed her coat and put it on slowly, trying to ignore the crestfallen look on Quinn's face.

"San," Quinn began, but Santana shook her head.

"No, it's okay Quinn. Message recieved loud and clear."

Just then, the door opened, and they both turned their heads to Spencer, who wasn't looking at them at all, but instead struggling with some bags and rambling.

"Alison, Emily, and I are going to go to this really cool restaurant after girl's day, you should come with me! I'd go alone but I already have the legendary third-wheel status between—oh." Spencer quickly stopped talking when she saw what was happening, immediately sensing that something was happening. And something was happening. Something bigger than Quinn, and certainly bigger than Santana.

Santana stood there, teary-eyed, and something in her chest tightened and took a hold of her. She wanted to cry in a way that she hadn't wanted to cry like in months. Quinn was already crying, silent tears flowed down her face and her lip quivered. Santana wanted to slap her for crying like that. Pretty girls were supposed to cry ugly. Pretty girls who cried like pretty girls had too much power.

"I'm sorry, should I go... or?" Spencer was staring at them with wide eyes.

"No. It's fine, I was just leaving." Santana's voice was heavy and laced with tears, which made her hate herself even more. She grabbed her bag and walked out, hating herself for leaving, but convincing herself that she had no choice. She was leaving Quinn and her little bottles behind, which was the worst possible thing that she could do. But Santana was tired of putting herself last. She was cold, and drenched in ocean water and tears.

Because New Haven was cold.

New York was cold.

Lima was cold.

And Quinn's ocean was freezing over.

 


	5. Advice From a Caterpillar

**_Advice From a Caterpillar_ **

_-_

_"As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! She was up to her chin in salt-water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea. However, she soon found out she was in the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet tall.”_

_-_

_And so I run now to the things_

_They said could restore me_

_Restore life the way it should be_

_I'm waiting for this cough syrup to come down_

_-_

**QUINN**

Quinn cried. Quinn cried for what seemed like hours but was actually a few minutes, noiseless shoulder-shaking sobs that wracked her body. Quinn was cold, and for the first time, the blue pill she had taken in the restroom did nothing to dull the everlasting ache that hollowed out her chest. She hated how it made her feel. Like a doll. She could feel the hurt from Santana leaving. She could feel it like she hadn't felt anything else in a long while, but it felt surreal. Like she was muddling through somebody else's nightmare and not her own.

Spencer stood like a stunned mullet in the corner of the room, the corner of her lip moving uncomfortably. She stared, and Quinn cried as silent waves rode down her cheeks. Then Spencer stepped forward and Quinn didn't have the power to push her off. Instead, she let herself hurt for the foreigner in the mirror who ruined the life she had planned.

This wasn't perfect. This was the most imperfect thing Quinn had let herself do since sophomore year, and it was hard for her to feel like she hadn't failed herself. The girl in the mirror was ashamed of her, that much was easy to tell. Quinn was supposed to be perfect. This was such a Lucy thing of her to do—to cry like this. She tried to bring herself to a stop, but her shoulders were weighed down by the unhappiness that she had pushed away with little pills.

Santana had said I love you. Santana had said I love you. Quinn had fantasized about it so many times... how it would happen... where... when. But in none of those fantasies did Quinn do what she just did. Because Santana had said I love you, and Quinn had done what Quinn Fabray always does—Run. She had run from something that could have actually made her happy, she had run because she was scared of being happy.

She tried not to admit it to anyone, even to herself, but Quinn knew why she was so often sad. She was sad because she wore sadness around her shoulders like a winter coat. She wore the same old gray coat every day, and she grew comfortable in it, she used it to keep her warm. Sometimes she felt like there was something beautiful in it, but other times she just thought that she had to get over herself. She knew that if she stretched her fingers far enough, she could stretch them over the sleeves of her coat and see that happiness was just around the corner.

But Quinn Fabray did not take a liking to unfamiliar things.

If anything was unfamiliar to her, it was happiness. She had only caught glimpses of it, every now and then. It was foreign, unfamiliar, inorganic. Quinn was a tragedy. She went from one tragedy to another, jumping from one to another in an almost pathological way. And it was all because she refused to accept happiness.

Quinn had fucked-up.

Quinn had fucked up and a bottle of pills wasn't going to fix it this time.

Quinn was scared. Okay, Quinn was always scared, she was terrified of everything... but it felt different this time. More real, more palpable, more life threatening. She didn't know if she could make it this time. Quinn knew that Santana had loved her, now that she thinks about it. How could she not know? It was blindingly obvious sometimes, but Quinn's ocean was too vast, and the fog was too thick for her to be able to see the mountains of Santana's affection.

Quinn had royally fucked up.

God, why was she so stupid?

She finally had a chance at having something... something good. Something special. She could have had something better than what she had before. And she screwed it up. Quinn didn't want to take a pill and forget this time. She wanted to hurt. She wanted her body to heat up and freeze all at the same time, she wanted to sweat, she wanted to shake, she wanted to feel the ache that she deserved.

Because Santana was hurting...

And it was all Quinn's fault.

This was what Quinn did. She was water, and every time she hurt—she would run. She would fall from the skies like God's hot angry tears and she would bring down everything in her path with her angst. She would sit in a glass bottle until she evaporated back into the air, dissolving almost like she was never there. It's just what she does. It's just a fact by now, and there wouldn't normally be a problem with it.

But Santana?

Santana was fire, and Quinn was bound to kill her flame. Crashing them together was like throwing a match into water, they were bound to burn out. Quinn knew this from the very first time that she laid next to Santana, she knew this as soon as she felt Santana's warmth next to her freezing hands. She just knew. But she jumped in anyway, because she knew. She knew she would hurt, and Quinn Fabray is a walking tragedy that likes to hurt.

She had this bad habit of needing other people to complete her. Because Quinn Fabray isn't used to being alone... not like Lucy was, anyway. She's used to feeling alone, sure. But being alone? No. Quinn Fabray has always been defined by somebody else. Finn, Puck, Sam, they couldn't compare to how much she wanted Santana to complete her.

Because Quinn had never been a whole person. Quinn was half a heart, and she needed another half to feel alive. And yes, it was a bad idea to let others define her that way, even Santana had told her that... but when she tried to be independent, she felt lonelier than ever.

She wanted to feel the warmth of happiness on her skin, honestly, she really did. But the road to happiness was a hard road to get to when she had been on the road to complete self-destruction for so long. She needed a lifeline. The pills were her lifeline. They restored her, made her feel something close to happiness. Or at least, as close as she's ever going to get.

Because even in Yale, she's incomplete. She knows that even Santana can't complete her. The only way she could ever be complete would be if somebody went back in time and saved Lucy, when she was six and hiding under her bed, trying in vain to keep out the yells. The only way that Quinn could be complete was if Lucy was. Because during the time in transition from Lucy to Quinn, she lost a part of herself that she could never get back. Lucy was still hiding below the bed trying to keep out the yells.

When Lucy lost the weight, she lost herself. Somewhere in-between crazy diets and shrinking waistlines, Lucy's lake evaporated and the only thing left was Quinn's vast ocean of sadness and tragedy. Quinn hated Lucy, or at least, she tried to, but a part of her ached for Lucy, because Quinn hadn't even been moderately happy since she was in eighth grade. Not the real kind of happiness. Not the kind of happiness where the warmth reached all the way down to that cold, dead place where her soul lied.

Quinn's hand was shaking, pleading for a little pill to numb the everlasting hurt in her chest. Quinn clasped Spencer's hand so tightly that she was sure every bone in her hand was broken, and then she ran. She doesn't remember what she said, but she remembers Spencer's worried look before she walked out. Quinn looked like she felt, but for once, she couldn't bring herself to care. She just wanted to go.

She looked like she felt—she looked like a mess. Her dress was rumpled and her cheeks were puffy and tears were streaming down her face. She was not beautiful. No matter what anyone said, she was not beautiful. This wreck of a woman was who she really was. Quinn felt like this every day. It was only fair.

She put one foot in front of the other as she walked slowly down the hallway. Every once in a while she would come across a person who would watch her out of the corner of their eye with fleeting glances, and some even stopped to ask if she was okay. She couldn't answer, and before very long, they walked away. She didn't need them. She needed Santana.

When she was in Santana's arms, she could pretend that she was loved.

That was okay, that was planned. She had done that time and time again with people who would never love her the way she wanted her to. She did it with Puck and with Finn and with Sam—she in no way expected Santana to be any different. Except, this time, Santana claimed to love her. Sure, Puck and Finn and Sam claimed the same thing. But Quinn always knew that they didn't.

This time though—this time seemed different. Quinn didn't exactly know why, maybe she was just hoping it was true... but something in Santana's eyes gave her hope. When Santana said “I love you,” she didn't seem like she was kidding. Could this be real? She wanted to believe it, but the doubts crept slowly back and forth in her thoughts.

It couldn't be real.

Because Santana had only ever known how to love one person—Brittany. And Quinn could never be Brittany. She was too broken, too rough around the edges, too much like Santana. Besides, Santana didn't look at her the way that she looked at Brittany. Her eyes didn't shine the same way and she hardly smiled. Even when she did smile, it was more of a sad smirk than anything else.

It had to be real.

People don't say “I love you” like that to people they don't love. They just don't.

It couldn't be real.

Because if it was real, that would mean that Quinn had a shot at having something real, something good and right and happy, and good things fled from Quinn like foxes from hunters. It couldn't be real, because now that the little pill's effects were wearing off, when she tried to recall the incident, it felt almost like a hazy dream. The only way that she could be sure it actually happened was that she could feel the cold New Haven air on her skin, reminding her that she ran out of her dorm room when she couldn't handle pain.

Typical Quinn Fabray. How unoriginal.

She just wanted to go home. Not Lima home, and not to her dorm room... but just, somewhere. Somewhere that felt like home. Santana. Santana felt like home. Not like Lima home, and not like New Haven home, but like the possibility of home. Of having a real home. Then it hit her, the realization that her affinity for little pills might have destroyed any chance she had with Santana.

Because Santana knew.

Santana knew, and Quinn had let her leave and... oh god, she's going to tell. There was no way in hell she wasn't going to tell. If the roles were reversed, Quinn would tell, too. But this—this was Quinn's secret. Nobody was supposed to know, she had been so careful. But she had let herself get sloppy... she had left the box unlocked in a rush to hide it. It was her fault. It should have stayed a secret. Maybe if it had stayed a secret she would have had a chance.

She found herself back at the door to her dorm room. She could faintly hear some hushed whispers from inside the doors. Right. Thursday. Spencer and the girls have a girls day on Thursday. Quinn wanted to run, but no matter what, she knew she couldn't escape Spencer forever. So, she turned the knob slowly, wishing herself the courage to stop running. Santana would never love a coward.

Her hand was shaking, and she thought maybe her body was, too. This was a bad idea. The girls were in there, they would judge her. She shouldn't have come back here. It was too late, the door had opened, if only a crack, and the girls had noticed it. Aria and Hanna were sitting on Spencer's bed, and their heads quickly turned up when they saw the door open. Alison and Emily were cuddling on a beanbag chair, and they hardly heard the door open. Spencer, on the other hand, wrapped her in a tight hug as soon as she stepped in the room.

The other girls knew something was wrong. Of course they did, Quinn looked like a mess. But they said nothing, at least, not right away.

“You ran out so quickly, I didn't have time to catch up to you. Are you okay?” Spencer whispered into her matted hair.

Quinn took a deep, shaky breath, “Yeah, I-I'm okay.”

“I bumped into Santana in the hallway when I was looking for you, I tried to ask her what happened but she wouldn't tell me anything. She just told me it wasn't her secret to tell and walked away.”

Quinn stayed quiet, her breaths coming out erratically. Spencer pulled away quickly, as if sensing her panic. Quinn noticed the girls, they were staring now.

“But that—that doesn't matter right now, because you're here and you're safe and... I'm really glad you're okay, Quinn.”

Quinn glanced quickly around the room, catching on to curious and pitying eyes, much like the ones directed to her when she was pregnant with Beth. She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and retreat into a safe hiding space. Her hand was still shaking, and maybe sweating, too. She tried to think of something to say, but her mind went blank. She suddenly thought of an article that she read in health class about how certain drug abuse could cause anxiety.

But... Quinn wasn't addicted. She was not a drug addict, not like her mother had been an alcoholic. She just needed the pills. She had surgery, they were prescribed to her (at some point.) And sure, maybe she had doctors under different names that she squeezed pills out of. Maybe she bought some strange purple miracles from the almost-fraternity boys downstairs. But she couldn't be addicted. They helped.

Quinn shrugged her shoulders and walked past Spencer, taking a seat on her bed. Spencer cared... or at least, she played the really convincing part of caring. One would look at the situation and say that she had cared all along, when she would say nothing and just throw blankets over her shaking body. Quinn needed someone, and yeah, she didn't know these girls. They would never be who she really wanted. But they were here—and Santana wasn't.

She covered her face with her hands and sniffled as a few hot tears made their way down her cheeks.

“I think I messed up. Like, really bad.”

Spencer was the first to step forward, she sat next to Quinn on the bed and rubbed her shoulder comfortingly, asking her to keep talking.

“Santana told me she loves me,” The girls looked up then, almost startled, begging her to continue, “And I was scared. I was scared, so I ran. She didn't slap me this time—she just let me run away from my problems. Although, I guess, technically, she was the one to run.”

“Wait, Santana hits you?” Hanna said, angry. Calling-Brittany-Stupid-In-Front-Of-Santana angry.

“No, no, no. Not like that. In high school, we were frenemies. We slapped each other a lot, but last time she slapped me it was after I tried to run from my shit. She's always called me out on my stupidity. It's the way we work. But today... after she said I love you, I said something I didn't mean and she didn't call me out. She just stayed quiet... and the look on her face. S-She looked like I had shattered her entire world. I-I—” Quinn hiccuped and sobbed against the palm of her hand.

There was no little pill keeping her ocean from exploding into massive waves. She could feel every emotion she had tried to be numb to, and she just wanted to curl up and stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

She rocked slightly against Spencer's arm, and Spencer looked desperately to her friends for help. Because Quinn was broken, and although this wasn't the first time she realized it, Quinn was more broken than Spencer knew how to fix.

Emily stepped forward next, wrapping Quinn in her thin arms. Quinn sobbed almost voicelessly, her body shaking as tears fell down her face in quick hot rivers. This was not perfect. Quinn was not perfect. She should not be crying. She should be popping a pill and pretending that everything was okay, pretending that she was the perfect girl everyone thought she must have been.

She wanted to, she really did.

She was just too tired.

And she needed to let go, to let go of all the pain that took hold of her chest and shook her shoulders. She needed to let go of the cries that had been stuck in her chest ever since after her surgery, when she began to love the floating feeling that took hold of her when she decided to reach into the locked box at the back of her closet.

She was just too tired to hold on.

So she let go.

She needed to cry.

So she cried like her life depended on it, in that pretty-girl sobbing way that she knew so well. She cried in strangers' arms until the girls were hardly strangers. She cried and sniffled and explained in the only words she could muster why she loved Santana. She listed to their advice and tucked it neatly into her back pocket until the day when she could actually use it.

Aria told her she needed to learn to love herself before she could let anyone else do it. Quinn couldn't find the courage to tell her that she was trying. She had always been trying. But she could not bring herself to love the girl that she was. The girl that had murdered Lucy, the girl that had bullied Rachel, the girl that had called Brittany stupid, the girl that gave up her only daughter... the girl that had caused that look on Santana's face just a few hours before.

Ali told her that she couldn't keep beating herself up over whatever happened in high school. Quinn thought she wasn't beating herself up enough. Because what Ali didn't understand was that Quinn had not changed, not really. She was still running, in true Quinn Fabray fashion. She was still the terrified girl that she had been on her first day of freshman year. Wasn't she supposed to learn from bad experiences and become a better person? It didn't feel like she did that, like she changed at all from the girl she was before to she girl she was at the moment. She was just more of a tragedy.

When the girls left, Spencer gave her a pointed look, and it hit Quinn that she had forgotten.

She had forgotten to hide the pills. She had run, and she had left them on the bed where Santana had hastily thrown them after her fit of rage. There was no way Spencer hadn't seen them, because they were no longer on the edge of the bed where they were before. Quinn looked around the room in panic, searching for a lifeline, but the only thing she found was Spencer's pitying stare.

“If you're looking for the pills, I threw them out.”

Quinn stayed quiet. Spencer knew. This was all happening too fast. There was too many things happening at once. Santana hated her; she couldn't have Spencer hate her, too. Spencer looked at her, as if reading her mind.

“Look, Quinn. Don't worry, I'm not judging, and I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to. But you're getting clean even if I have to do it myself. I know that's probably not all of your stash, where do you have the rest of it?”

Quinn shook her head, “I—I-” Stop.

“Quinn Fabray, don't you dare lie to me right now.” Quinn's eyes betrayed her and flashed quickly to her closet, which Spencer quickly caught on to. She found a couple of discarded packets, and then turned back to Quinn.

“Is this all?” Quinn nodded. Liar.

Spencer nodded and then sat next to her on the bed.

“Look, Quinn... I understand where you're coming from. I know you think I don't, but I do. Ever since I met you—I've kind of seen a lot of myself in you. Apparently there's more than I thought. When I was in high school, I had a little problem of my own. I don't think it ever got as bad, maybe, as I believe yours is. But I understand.

“When I was in high school, everybody knew me. I was Spencer Hastings. I wasn't particularly popular, but I was the 4.0 student, the captain of the hockey team, the lead in every play. I spread myself so thin, and it was what my parents expected—but still, I was never good enough for them. So to keep myself going, I popped Adderall like they were skittles. Lucky for me, Hanna noticed after a few weeks. I went to Radley, this low-key rehab clinic in Rosewood. And I never went back.

“I guess what I'm really trying to say here, Quinn, is that you have a choice. I know you think you need this, and I'm not even going to try lying to you, withdrawal is going to suck so bad, but you need to do this. I know that you're not going to want professional help, and to be honest I think the clinics here are useless anyways, but I'm here. I've been through it, and I can help you. The first thing my shrink did when I went to Radley was ask me to tell her what I just told you. I don't know exactly how much it helped but I'd like to think it did. So, Quinn, what's your story?”

Quinn shook her head.

“Quinn.”

A few tears leaked from Quinn's eyes and she took a deep breath.

“I was—I was not, you know, a happy kid. My parents were unhappy with each other. My mom drank until she couldn't stand and my dad went out at night and then came back the next day like nothing had happened. Sometimes they would fight, and it would get so bad that dad would throw glass at my mom's head and my mom just told me to hide. As I grew older I noticed the way that my dad looked at me, like I was worthless. And when he was drunk, he told me exactly what he thought. I was fat. I was ugly. I was stupid. I was a stain on the Fabray's perfect reputation.”

“So I decided to change. The summer before seventh grade I stopped eating what I wanted, I joined gymnastics and went running every day for hours. It was grueling. I threw up more times than I can count... but I figured than in the end, when I was pretty... when my dad looked at me the way that he looked at my sister, Frannie, that it might all be worth it. I got a nose job the summer before freshman year and when I finally moved into high school, I was the prettiest girl in my class. Some even said I was the prettiest in the school.

“But even then, it was not enough. I felt inadequate, I felt unloved, worthless... I had pretty much two friends, Santana and Brittany, and they didn't even like me all that much. By sophomore year, I was somehow the most popular girl in the school and had no real friends, which was disheartening. I was dating the quarterback... cliché, I know. But he was hung up on this geek, and he made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And one day, a day when I was feeling insecure... his best friend lured me into bed and I got drunk on wine coolers, and you know.

I hated myself for it, and I didn't tell anyone... but then, I missed my period... It was terrifying when I got the positive test back. I didn't know what to do. I tried to hide it, I told my boyfriend that in a song. I mean, who the hell does that? And my dad kicked me out when he found out. So much for unconditional love, huh?” Quinn was crying again now, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffled.

Spencer was looking at her with teary eyes, “I'm so sorry, Quinn.”

“And then, Finn found out that he wasn't really the father, and I couldn't live at his house anymore, so I went to live with Puck, the guy who got me pregnant. When the baby was born, I couldn't believe it. She was so beautiful. So perfect. She was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen and she was mine. Except she wasn't, not really, because I had to give her up to adoption, to a woman who could care for her better than I could. And on top of that she was the birth mother of the girl Finn was in love with. My mom asked me to move back in after I gave up the baby, 'cause apparently my father was having an affair with some tattooed freak.

“A few weeks later he moved back in, with empty promises of change. He berated me and Beth. He didn't understand why I still cared for my baby girl, why I spent hours just looking at the one picture I had of her. The summer before junior year I wanted to stop being myself, and for a little while I did. I dyed my hair pink, I got a tattoo of Ryan Seacrest, I hung out with this group of girls that called themselves the Skanks and got a twenty-seven year old boyfriend who smelled like cigarettes and wouldn't stop touching my feet.”

“Oh, wow, that sounds awful in its entirety. But also kind of hilarious.” Spencer giggled.

“It was. I so could not rock that teenage angst rebel thing. Pink was never really my color.”

“I'm really sorry you had to go through all that shit, Quinn.”

“Oh, I'm not done.” Quinn said, and Spencer's eyes widened.

“Anyway, that school year, Shelby, the woman who adopted Beth came to teach at my high school. That was absolute torture. She told me that if I cleaned up my act I could be a part of my daughter's life. So I dyed my hair back to blonde and switched out the leather jackets for my old sundresses. I was going through my manic depressed phase though, so I planted a bunch of crap in her house to make her look like a bad mother. She found out and banned me from ever seeing Beth again. Then, Finn, the ex-boyfriend proposed to Rachel, that geek he was in love with.”

“And since me and Rachel were kind of friends, although looking back I think I had a pretty weird obsession with her, I decided to show up and somehow got roped into being a bridesmaid. On the way there, I crashed my car. It was—it was really bad. I was in a wheelchair, and although they said there was a good chance I would be able to walk again, they weren't sure. My life felt like it was over. And the painkillers they gave me... I don't know, they made me feel better.

But I walked. I was at prom, singing a duet with Santana, the gayest rendition of Take My Breath Away you've ever heard.

“And here I am. I think I'm done now.”

“Jesus fuck Quinn.” Spencer said, teary eyed. “I honestly don't even know what to say. You... that's crazy. Fucking insane. And you're still standing. You're the strongest person I've ever met. I bow to you. You are my god.”

Quinn laughed, “Are you okay, Spencer? You sound like Hanna.” Sometime along telling her tragic life story her crying had stopped. It seemed amusing to her how every single problem she had could correlate with some shitty teen drama.

“God, Quinn. I thought I came into this conversation all calm and collected and totally knowing of what I was doing but now I'm just confused. I don't know what to say which will help. But I do know that right know, you have two main problems. Those stupid pills, and Santana. Tackle those. Make those right. You know how to make the Santana thing right, I really can't help with that.

As for the pills, I don't know when the withdrawal symptoms will start to kick in, because use been using them for so long, I think it'll be soon. Call your professors. You're not going to be able to be in class. When your symptoms are kicking in, either me or one of the girls will be here to help you and make sure that everything's okay.”

“Wait, did you tell them?” Quinn said, her voice getting a little angry.

“Yes, Quinn, I did, and before you say anything, let me tell you something: they don't care. Those girls have been through a good amount of bullshit, and let me tell you, watching you suffer is fucking painful to watch. They want to help.”

Quinn didn't know what to say. It was hard, to accept help. It was hard of her to even admit that she needed help, but here is Spencer, telling her that she's been through something similar, and that she's okay now. And fuck, it's been so long since Quinn has even tried to be happy, and it's painful to think that she'll be here forever, stuck in this never-ending tragedy.

Quinn was trying to stitch back up that hole she made in the tapestry of the universe, and for now, that was all that mattered.

 


	6. Pig and Pepper

_**Pig and Pepper** _

_-_

_"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think, was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I?_

_-_

_I feel love when I see your face_

_But all these scars I can't replace_

_Shocked me hard, hit me hard_

_And I don't know what to say_

-

**SANTANA**

Tears stung Santana's eyes, something was let loose in her chest and the sobs wouldn't subside for long enough so she could pull herself together. The hallways and parking lots of New Haven were all blurring together too much for her to make sense of what was happening. Quinn's words ran by in her head, she could hear them perfectly, and along them came the daggers that pierced into her chest at the mere thought of the blonde. She made her way to the subway station in New Haven, not bothering to take the bus, but walking on foot. The air was cold, and it nipped at her fingers, but she was numb.

In a vain attempt to block out what happened she bit at the skin on her lips, causing a bleeding line between her teeth to appear. When she got on the subway, her runny mascara caused a few heads to turn, and she tried to hide her face behind a curtain of hair. She was stupid to think that Quinn wanted any more of her than sex. It was in Quinn's nature.

Quinn Fabray had never been taught how to love anyone. She didn't know how. Santana knew better than to think that she could change the simple makeup of who Quinn was. She knew she had shitty luck when it came to the girls that she chose to date, but this was something completely out of her ball park. Those stupid pill packets were ruining Quinn, and Santana didn't think that a haircut would fix anything this time.

She didn't know if she should tell, if she should let Quinn be, like she wished. Santana knew that if the roles were reversed Quinn would leave her alone. But something told her that the blonde was wasting away, and if Santana didn't stop her, she didn't know who would.

Her hands were shaking when she stepped off the subway. She didn't want to be at the loft, and she wanted to avoid Rachel and Kurt's prying eyes and questions, so she walked around New York City until it was beginning to get dark. She had somehow managed to turn off the waterworks and let her mind go blank. She didn't want to think about her.

When she finally got back to the loft, Kurt and Rachel were in the kitchen and the smell of Rachel's famous vegan cookies was wafting through the place. They turned around when the door opened, and upon laying eyes on her, Kurt let out a dramatic "Oh my god."

"Thanks, Kurt, I knew I looked like shit but that makes me feel so much better." When Rachel saw her, it was her turn to freak out.

"Santana! Whoa, are you alright? What happened?"

"Look, Rachel, I really do not want to do this whole interrogation thing right now, I hope you understand. I can't, not now."

"Yeah, yeah, I get that, sorry. Kurt and I are making cookies if you want some."

"Sure, Rachel. I'm going to go take a shower." Santana felt the urge to wash away everything that had happened so that she could have a clean slate. She knew that this time, she was not to blame, but for some reason there was still a debilitating shame that lied like a rock in her chest. Had she done the right thing by leaving? She didn't know. She had only felt this way once before, when she had sat in an empty choir room with a different blonde. How did she get over that one? Oh wait, she didn't. Right, her bad.

Fuck.

Quinn was going to wreck her. For some reason, though, Santana was okay with that. But the fact that Quinn was drowning herself in those stupid drugs meant that she was going to wreck herself, too, like she always does. When the reality of the situation hit Santana, she was in the middle of a warm shower, the water slipping down her back. The bar of soap that she was holding hit the tile with a thud. Quinn was a drug addict.

Quinn was a drug addict and Santana had failed to notice it.

She should have noticed, she should have... there was no way she couldn't have noticed. They were spending way too much time together for Santana not to. And yet, somehow, Santana had been too wrapped up in herself to notice. She knew that she was self-centered, but damn. Santana liked to think that she knew Quinn relatively well, considering how guarded the both of them were. Now, though? How much did she really know about her?

How long had Quinn been doing this shit? And how long could she be doing it, before something happened?

Fuck.

There was too much Santana didn't know. Too much that Santana couldn't do for her. The fleeting thought that Quinn could die ran through her head, and Santana tried to fight it away, but it was too late. She had let herself think of it, and now the thought would not leave her mind. She felt a stinging in her chest, and she bit her lip to hold back a sob, but it was too late, there was nothing that she could do. Her body jerked as she cried, and she was sure that Kurt and Rachel could hear her sobbing through the thin walls, but there was something gone loose inside her and she couldn't stop.

She couldn't lose Quinn, not her. Not yet. She didn't know how to fix any of it. Quinn needed help, but she didn't know how to get it to her. And at this rate, Santana was scared that she would never get the chance to find out. Quinn was crumbling in front of everyone's eyes and nobody--not even her-- was looking closely enough to notice. Quinn needed more than a body to fuck, she needed a friend, and Santana had not seen that.

She wasn't very good at this whole friend thing.

When her sobs subsided to hiccups, she walked out and wrapped a towel around herself. Her face was splotchy and her eyes bloodshot; there was no way to hide the fact that she had been crying, but there was no point anyway, because she was sure that Kurt and Rachel had already heard her. She pulled on the sweats and t-shirt that she had left lying out for herself and pulled her hair into a ponytail. She just wanted to sit in her bed and cry, or maybe go back to New Haven and wrap Quinn up in her arms until she was okay.

Unfortunately, her arms wouldn't fix Quinn. Nothing would. Perhaps ever. Santana wanted to start crying again at the thought of it.

God, she's pathetic.

Since when was Santana the type of girl who cried over this shit?

She walked out of the bathroom and found Kurt and Rachel on the couch. They turned as soon as they heard the door open, watching her with pitying eyes. Kurt stood up as soon as she came out, enveloping her in a hug. Santana wasn't much of a hugger, but she cherished the gesture. She didn't know how much she needed the gesture until she had it, and it was a nice moment. Until Kurt pulled away and gave her a kiss on the cheek and she was grossed out again.

"It'll be okay, Santana. In the meanwhile, we have cookies. They're vegan, but they almost taste like real food this time." Kurt guided her to the couch, and she sat down between him and Rachel. In an odd moment of affection, Rachel put her hand on Santana's knee and squeezed it, giving her a small smile before turning back to whatever musical was playing this time. Into the Woods, maybe. Santana couldn't really concentrate on the movie, but being with Kurt and Rachel made her feel distracted. When the movie ended and the end credits rolled past, Rachel gave Kurt 'the look' and Santana knew this was the moment that they were going to want to talk about it.

"Guys, can we not?"

"Santana..." Kurt sighed.

"Santana, we just, we don't think it's good for you to keep everything locked up."

"And Rachel, I just don't think it's good for me to talk about this right now. Look, what happened happened, nothing I can do about it now. So just let it go."

"So, I'm guessing, you and Quinn aren't a thing? Shame, I thought Quinntana would have been a pretty cute name. Or maybe Lobray? Or--"

"Kurt! Now is not the time." Rachel chastised.

"Right, I'm sorry Santana. I totally get you, I mean, I had a crush on Finn for like, a year."

"Well, you know what they say, never fall in love with a straight girl. Fucks you up every time." Santana gave a dry laugh. She was basically a walking lesbian cliche, having fallen in love with her straight best friend. All she needed now was to buy more beanies and flannels and she'd be set. Maybe she could buy a truck. The whole lipstick lesbian thing was attracting too many experimenting straight girls. Or maybe just one, but that was enough to fuck her up.

She made up an excuse about needing to sleep, and Rachel offered her bed for the night, so she climbed in without waiting until it was late enough that she would actually be tired. She was exhausted, and she wanted to forget the world for a couple days.

It got a little sad really, how quickly Santana lost that Lopez charm. She wasn't the type of girl to be so hung up over a girl that she didn't leave her bed for days. But Quinn Fucking Fabray always brought out the worst in her. It was stupid, how she always decided to give her heart to girls who rejected it. It was getting pretty fucking old.

She had not gotten out of the loft since she came back, and she had lost track of how many days it had been. Four, maybe? Her life had been reduced to a blur of Alanis Morissette songs and Orange is the New Black episodes. And thinking about Quinn. About kissing Quinn. About slapping her. About dragging her to rehab. She didn't want to think about the girl, but it was getting kind of impossible not to.

Quinn Fabray was like a drug to her. Quinn was ruining Santana, that much was easy to tell. But honestly, Santana couldn't bring herself to have it any other way. Santana cared about Quinn too much. If it were anyone else, she could probably let it go. Let them waste away, it's none of her business how they choose to self destruct. She had always promised herself that she wouldn't get involved in other people's shit.

But for some reason, Quinn Fabray had always been the exception to every single one of Santana's rules. Fucking blondes.

Santana was a motherfucking mess.

On this thought, her phone blared. An unknown number. Usually, Santana would let those calls go straight to voicemail, but she needed a distraction. Talking to a stranger could definitely be one.

"Hello?"

"Santana, right?" Okay, so, not a stranger. It was a girl's voice that sounded raspy. She spoke slowly. The redhead from last month? No, Santana didn't give her her number. Who the fuck...

"Yeah."

"Hey, sorry, I'm Spencer. I'm Quinn's roomate." Oh, fuck. The tall brunette. Santana contemplated hanging up, but the fleeting thought that something could have happened scared her so much that it kept her on the phone.

"Is Quinn okay?"

"Hardly." Spencer said, and Santana's breath caught in her throat. Did she die? Oh god, she did, didn't she? It's her fault, she didn't stay, she should ha--

"Whoa, whoa, that came out way wrong. Quinn is fine. Well, not really, but she will be. Look, she's going through really bad withdrawal symptoms right now. She's had a fever for like, two days and it's not breaking. She's sweating all over her sheets, she's constantly throwing up. The girls and I are trying to help her, but we've only just gotten to know her. I didn't know who else I should call."

"Fuck." Santana ran a hand through her hair. Part of her wanted to stay here, wallowing in her pity. But a greater part of her knew that Quinn needed someone. She was sure that Spencer was... great, but Quinn was way too stubborn to accept help from girls she barely knew.

"Look, I'm sorry for what Quinn did, I know it was shitty. But she probably feels like she's on the brink of death right now. She needs you."

"Yeah, yeah, I- um- I'll be there tomorrow, maybe. I need to sort some stuff out first."

"Please come. She needs you right now."

"I- I need to go." Santana said and abruptly hung up.

She didn't know whether to feel angry or guilty. Of course Quinn was going to lash out. Santana didn't meet her yesterday. She knew Quinn enough to know that Quinn didn't mean what she said when she lashed out. She was defensive. It was something that both of the girls had in common. They said shit they didn't mean when they were found to be vulnerable. Santana should have known better than to leave.

If the roles were reversed, would Quinn have left?

Santana wasn't sure anymore.

What had she done? She had fucked up. She had fucked up big time. And she wanted to fix it, but she didn't know how. Quinn Fabray was complicated at best. Santana didn't know her, or herself well enough to know how to act in these situations.

So, she picked up her phone again, to call the one girl who might be able to help her right now.

One ring.

Two rings.

"Hello?"

"Britt?" Hearing her voice again was hard. It was like returning to your childhood home after it has been remodeled. It's still there, but it's not the same, because you can't call it yours anymore. You know what they say about first loves.

"Hi, Santana. I've missed you." Her voice was soft. Reverent, slow, it was the same voice that used to send Santana into overdrive. It still did, to an extent. But she was hung up on a different blonde and she didn't know how to explain it. Brittany seemed to notice that something was wrong soon enough. She knew Santana too well for her own good.

"What's up, San?"

"Britt, I-"

"You can tell me, Santana."

"I, I um, I need your advice. About a girl. Wow, this is awkward. Um, there's this girl. And I really like her. But I think that she's straight, but we've been, you know. This girl, she has a problem. Like a serious problem, a drug problem, and I found out a few days ago. After that she told me to leave because she didn't want me to know and I got mad and told her how I felt and I stormed out. And her roommate called me and told me she's in withdrawal and asked me to go back. I don't know if I should."

It was therapeautic to let someone else know. Even if that someone else was Brittany, and she had totally just told her best friend who she used to be in love with that she just might, maybe be in love with their other best friend. This was a fucking mess.

"It sounds like you really care about her, Santana."

"I do."

"Look, this girl, she sounds like she doesn't need a girlfriend right now. She needs to sort herself out first. She needs to deal with her problem, and get better. She needs a friend. You should go back."

"Thanks, Britt. I don't know what I would do without you."

"Go to her, Santana. Nobody should ever have to be alone through something like that, and tell Quinn I say hi."

"What?" Okay, so Brittany definitely knew Santana too well for her own good.

"You are absolutely transparent, Santana. I've gotta go, I have a date with Sam. I love you."

"Love you too, B."

Santana had to go back. She had to, because Quinn needed her. She shouldn't have left. Santana was Quinn's friend first. So, she packed a bag, because she didn't know how long she would be gone for.

She needed to do the right thing for once. She had fucked up with Quinn before, and neither of them needed a repeat of sophomore year. This time around, she was determined to be there for Quinn. Quinn needed to learn how to treat herself well, instead of giving every piece of herself away for the world to chew up. Santana wanted Quinn to love herself in that way she never knew how to.

Quinn needed to be treated well. She needed to be around someone who wouldn't leave, someone who would treat her like she deserved even when she lashed out. She needed someone who would listen. And god, Santana wanted so badly to be that person.

She wanted to memorize the scars on Quinn's back, she wanted to hear every single childhood story, she wanted to know Quinn like nobody ever had before. She wanted to say her name over and over again, until it felt strange on her tongue and she had to get used to it all over again. God, when had she become such a fucking sap?

Santana felt a spark let loose inside her, and she was too far gone to put it out.

She had been hopeless for so long. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she had definitely been in a rut. She had been in a city big enough to get lost in, with millions of other people. She was just another heartbeat hidden under a coat in the millions of them in New York City. She had never felt so smal, so lonely. She didn't have a purpose here.

She knew it was wrong to base her happiness off of another person. But Quinn Fabray was giving her purpose. And, fuck it, she had fallen too far down the rabbit hole to care what happened to her. She knew it was wrong, because Quinn was an ocean, and she was way too easy to get lost in.

Love is pain. It is unbearable pain, it's confusion, it's not knowing anymore whether you're the rabbit or the snake. Santana had learned this before, but she still fell in. Love is pain, sure, but she couldn't get enough.

She was jumping into the ocean head first, and she couldn't care less if she drowned.

The next day, she was on the bus ride to New Haven, her heart was about to beat out of her chest. Or, at least, that was what it felt like. There was a hornet's nest in her stomach. She had not been this nervous since the last bus ride to New Haven. What would she see this time? Santana had never seen Quinn in pain. It was something she hoped that she would never have to.

But Quinn was going through fucking withdrawal, and that was almost surreal to think about. Santana should have been there for Quinn last year. She should have known, when Quinn switched out her leather jackets for her old sundresses after her accident that she hadn't magically gotten better. Quinn was so calm, so nice. She was not nearly as terrifying, and that was very Fabray-like in itself. Quinn's mother drowned herself in vodka, and her father in women, Santana should have known.

She should have noticed.

But instead, she was too hung up on her own shit. She was too hung up on Brittany to notice that her other blonde was suffering. And she would never forgive herself for that. But now--now she had a chance to make it right. And she was going to take it, no matter the personal cost. Quinn deserved that much.

When her bus stopped in front of the campus, her heart beat faster and her palms began to sweat. She briefly considered turning back, but fuck that, she didn't take an hour and a half bus ride for no reason.

Quinn needed her, and she would be there.

Quinn needed her, and she would be there.

Quinn needed her, and she would be there.

She repeated this over and over in her head, wondering that if she did it enough time all the doubt would flee from her mind. Soon enough, she was off the bus, and there was no turning back. She called Spencer, and waited for the girl to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, I just got here. I'm outside the dorm, but I'm going to need you to sign me in."

"Oh, yeah, sure, I'll be right down. Thank you so much again for coming." Spencer said before hanging up.

'I never should have left.' Santana thought.

Spencer came down and waved to Santana. She stood about two inches taller than Santana. She was pretty, but the kind of pretty that most people missed at first and noticed later.

"Hey." Santana said, walking over to her. She was determined not to be a bitch for the first time in her life, because she had taken care of Quinn when Santana didn't. Spencer deserved some props for that.

"Holy fuck, you look like Emily."

"What?"

"Nevermind that, hi, I'm Spencer. I signed you in already, let's go."

"Okay."

"Okay, so Quinn's up there. I should warn you, she isn't doing that well. She's pretty delirious. She's kind of going in and out of consciousness right now. She has a fever, and she might throw up. I would stay to take care of her, but I have a date today and I can't. I'll probably be back later. Don't give her milk, it might curdle in her stomach and she could choke on it or something."

Spencer's phone beeped in her back pocket. She quickly took it out and cursed. "Fuck, it's Toby. I need to go, he's waiting in the parking lot. The door's open, will you be okay to go up there yourself?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Take care of her, Santana."

"I will, bye Spencer." Santana climbed the stairs up to Quinn's dorm as fast as she could. She didn't like the idea of Quinn being up there by herself for too long. When she got to Quinn's dorm she pushed open the door. The sight that awaited her nearly tore her heart in two.

Quinn was sweating so much that her hair was sticking to her cheeks, but she didn't look like she even noticed. She was drifting between this world and the next, but Santana was determined to keep her here. Quinn saw Santana, but she didn't have the reaction that Santana expected.

"Hi," She said before putting her head back on the pillow.

Fuck.

It hadn't really hit Santana until now how bad it was. She knew, in theory, that it was bad, but until now she hadn't noticed how much Quinn was suffering. She wanted to cry, but she needed to be there for Quinn. She had to be strong, because right now, it was definitely not Quinn's job to be. It was Quinn's job to get better.

So Santana walked up to Quinn and pressed her lips to her slick forehead.

She was finally learning how to swim.

 


End file.
